Emergence

1
Emergence PITP workshop May 15-18,
2005Vancouver, BC
Semantic Transmission and the Emergent Mind
Antony Crofts Department of Biochemistry Universi
ty of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
A more complete account, with links, but without
pictures is available at http//www.life.uiuc.edu/
crofts/papers/Life_information_entropy_and_time.ht
ml.
2
Experiment
(At this point, the audience was asked to close
their eyes the speaker then said We are such
stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life
is rounded with a sleep. The audience was then
asked to consider what had come into their minds
on hearing this sentence. The speaker offered
several suggestions, and pointed out that even
those who were able to identify the quotation
(Prosperos speech to Miranda and Ferdinand, Act
IV, The Tempest) had not noticed the right
answer. Nothing enters the mind under these
conditions, - but something does enter the ear.
The sound waves are purely physical, and the
meaning that becomes apparent in the mind is the
consequences of a hierarchical series of
translational machineries and interpretational
filters, eventually triggering a more
sophisticated set of associations to pre-existing
mind entities. The speaker then suggested that
this odd property of the mind was interesting,
and promised to explain the pathway through which
his own interest was aroused.)
3
Quantifying the energetics of the biosphere
The earth is in steady-state, so incoming energy
is matched by outgoing energy. The Second Law is
satisfied by the larger number of quanta of lower
energy going out. To the extent that the
biosphere is in steady-state, its effects are
subsumed under existing terms. Since the
emergence of modern man, civilization has
contributed an increasing additional effect, -
civilization, - including an increased
informational content, and direct environmental
effects. How can we bring these effects into our
accounting of energy fluxes?
4
50 arriving at surface 33 in growing season 20
intercepted by leaves 20 lost by reflection 50
photosynthetically inactive (wrong color) 30
conversion efficiency 40 lost to
maintenance 0.5 Net Primary Productivity (NPP).
This is 10 total world energy consumption
Based on http//asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/erbe/compone
nts2.gif
Life is sustained by a relatively small fraction
of the energy from the sun, - the 0.5 yield of
net photosynthetic product that is recycled as
heat through animal consumption, and bacterial
and fungal biodegradation. Thermal loss is
delayed by latent heat effects wind, waves,
currents, hydrological cycle. Biosphere can be
thought of as a latent heat effect. Dissipation
is delayed, because the photochemical conversion
in photosynthesis is stored through coupled
chemical reactions.
5

• The biosphere
• The biosphere - all the living forms on the
  planet (for the physicist, - a thin layer of
  negentropic slime over the surface). Human kind
  is naturally part of the biosphere, operating
  through the same mechanisms as other life forms.
  Basic biochemical mechanisms are the same
  throughout living forms from bacteria on up.
• The energy conversion processes through which the
  biosphere is maintained are well-understood.
  Photosynthesis uses energy from the sun to
  synthesize complex molecules. These in turn
  provide the energy used to sustain the rest of
  the biosphere through respiration and
  fermentation. Reactions are coupled so that
  energy drops are matched, the dissipation
  functions are shallow, and fluxes are highly
  controlled.

Your biosphere at work The seasonal fluctuation
of NPP over two years (see bottom scale). The
biological and solar flux aspects can all, in
principle, be accounted for. What about the
information content of civilization?
Movie from Earth Observatory (http//earthobservat
ory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NPP/npp.html)
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• Information Content three different meanings
• Three different usages of the term information
  content
• Order in the system, - classical entropy,
  usually used in the context of data encoding,
  transmission, translation, etc., and their
  thermodynamic costs.
• Shannons Informational Entropy (equation below),
  which is useful in comparing information encoded
  in different formats.
• The constant K is arbitrary. Boltzmanns
  treatment of entropy was developed via a similar
  equation, but the relation to physical states was
  explicit, through kB. The two functions are
  obviously related, but Shannon entropy is useful
  mainly because it allows quantification of coding
  elements without reference to their physical
  state. (A similar probability function was first
  proposed by de Moivre in The Doctrine of
  Chances, 1718)
• c) Semantic content. Shannon noted the
  distinction between engineering aspects as
  covered by a) and b), and the semantic content, -
  the meaning of the message. No obvious way to
  relate semantic content to formal thermodynamics.

7
Three suggestions to define properties of
semantic content

• The semantic content of a message adds no
  additional thermodynamic burden over that due to
  the engineering aspects.
• The semantic content has a value only in a
  particular context.
• The meaning only becomes apparent on translation
  and/or interpretation.

8

• Two avenues for information transmission in the
  biosphere
• The forms of living things (the phenotype of
  each) are defined by the information in DNA (the
  genotype). All living things have this avenue for
  semantic transnission.
• Transmission of information between generations
  is a copying function.
• Contemporary life forms all have a semantic
  heritage through DNA going back to the same
  common ancestor, - a duration of the same
  length, 3.5 billion years. If there were a
  thermodynamic cost of semantic content, it would
  be amortized over this 3.5 billion year period.
• You are the result of a translational machinery
  with hierarchical levels of increasing
  combinatorial complexity (DNA?protein?cells?tissu
  es?you).
• For human kind, an additional channel for
  semantic transmission is provided by the
  extra-chromosomal cultural heritage, the
  collective stored output of human consciousness,
  - the whole apparatus of civilization.

(4 bases ? 20 aminoacids ? 30,000 proteins ?
metabolism, structure, control, recognition )
(128 symbols ? 50,000 words (educated
vocabulary), numbers, etc. ? grammar, syntax ? an
infinity of ideas)
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• Interesting issues arising from the properties of
  semantic transmission
• Semantic content of the cultural heritage has the
  same properties as that transferred through DNA,
  - the semantic content imposes no additional
  thermodynamic burden over that of data storage
  and transmission mechanisms, it has a value only
  in a particular context, and the meaning of the
  message is apparent only through translation
  and/or interpretation.
• These properties demand complementary properties
  of the human mind. All input to the mind is via
  physicochemical detectors (the five senses).
  Before anything has meaning it has to go through
  a hierarchical series of translational and
  interpretational filters. We cannot interpret
  information for which we lack the translational
  machinery.

(At this point, we recall the experiment with
which the lecture started)
Where did the mind come from?
credits
10

• Evolution, behavior, time, and the emergence
  of mind
• Three components, - the biological apparatus, the
  individual mind, civilization.
• All living things show behavior, - they respond
  to the environment. The response represents a
  temporal sequence and requires an awareness of
  time, - chronognosis.
• Anticipation of changes in the environment has an
  evolutionary advantage.
• One line of evolution has been towards the
  exploitation of temporal awareness through the
  development of movement, and a sophisticated
  sensory apparatus, to increase the chronognostic
  range animals, and eventually, human kind.
• Plants also show chronognosis, - diurnal and
  seasonal variations in form and metabolism in
  anticipation of the availability of light,
  temperature, water, etc.
• Up until 150,000 years ago, all behavior was
  determined by the biological form of the
  phenotype, - transmission of semantic information
  through DNA (genotype).
• 2 and 3. With the evolution of modern man, the
  development of a sophisticated vocal apparatus,
  and the extension of certain properties of the
  brain, came the development of consciousness,
  language, mind, and eventually of civilization.

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Evolution of the individual mind The nature of
mind as a translational machinery for
physicochemical input means we can know only what
we are already equipped to understand. Our
conception of reality, starts in the womb as a
blank slate, and expands as our physical contact
with the world makes possible an iterative
process of verification and reformulation. The
newborn mind evolves to the adult mind through an
extended learning process. Education
recapitulates civilization We are thinking
machines. Each individual mind accumulates a
unique set of perceptual images, and can re-order
and re-correlate these to generate new world
models, - to create new ideas. Acquisition of
language allows us to interpret more abstract
semantic content. Within the limits of our
interpretational machinery, we can correlate
incoming ideas with our existing world model,
reconfigure them, and transmit them in
conversations. This individual mutation of
ideas is what allows our cultural heritage to
evolve, - what gives it life. The obvious
social context brings in a third level at which
evolution occurs. New ideas are subject to
selection pressure from social peer groups
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• Evolution
• At the DNA level
• Conservation of useful characteristics requires
  faithful reproduction of the semantic message in
  DNA.
• Evolution requires new forms that compete. The
  mechanisms of evolution work on the variations
  among species to select those fittest for
  survival.
• The copying machinery therefore has to be
  imperfect random mutations that are not
  perfectly repaired.
• Selection through survival of the fittest leads
  to more advanced forms better able to garner
  the thermodynamic potential.
• Competition occurs between and within populations
  of species, but works at the individual level.
  The semantic content of DNA only has meaning in
  this context.
• The interplay within populations, between
  populations, and with the physical and chemical
  environment, through feedback on the genome,
  means that the informational context within an
  ecology is extremely complex.

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Evolution (continued)

• Similar mechanisms work in the evolution of
  societies.
• The cultural heritage of a civilization is
  sustained through the faithful transmission of
  its semantic content between individuals and over
  generations, through education and archival
  storage.
• The ability of the individual mind to mutate
  ideas introduces a variability through which
  evolutionary pressures can play a selective role.
• The exchange between the individual and the wider
  society harboring a civilization introduces an
  inevitable social context. We think within our
  cultural heritage, - sorting algorithms learnt
  in education. Our peers can only deal with our
  conversations if our ideas are within an agreed
  common frame of reference, - we have to share
  similar sorting algorithms.
• The two-way semantic traffic of such
  conversations is the basis of our education,
  teaching, society, etc., and the source of all
  change in the cultural heritage.

14
70,000 years ago
Emergence of civilization
Sophisticated language, tool making, semantic
abstraction
30,000
Lascaux cave drawings
Invention of archival data storage
(See here for links to sources)
Chinese 1500 BC to now
agriculture
12,000
early civilization
7,000
Now
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• Emergence of the mind
• The evolution of the modern human mind arises
  from the extension of behavior into a
  supra-phenotypical range, and echoes the
  emergence of civilization.
• Social systems
• Language
• Conscription of inanimate matter to extend
  behavior, - tool making
• Abstract representation
• Agriculture, allowing extensive settlements
• Number systems
• Writing
• Monumental calendars
• Division of labor and social stratification
• Formal education
• The present adult mind depends on the combined
  efforts of thousands of prior generations in
  establishing the external semantic heritage that
  provides the base and framework of our knowledge.
  Rather than cogito ergo sum , we should say
  cogito ergo sumus, - the difference is us.
• The phenotype has probably not changed
  significantly over this period. The mind that
  shaped the art of Lascaux was not inferior, but
  educated to a different context.

16
The importance of Western civilization as seen
through the increase in chronognostic range as
the biosphere has evolved
We could use many different indicators of
civilization on our y-axis
Many contributions Printing, exploration Renaissa
nce, reformation, humanism Copernican
revolution Emergence of rationality from
constraints of dogma.
Where is this headed? Uncertain, because of
downside, - environmental damage. There are many
instances of the demise of civilizations, each an
example of the sort of survival test through
which civilizations are filtered. Civilizations
evolve and adapt, or perish.
17

• Philosophical parallels and epistemological
  implications
• The picture of the emergence of mind required by
  recognition of the thermodynamic inconsequence of
  semantic content is an evolutionary one - the
  mind emerged as a translational machinery of
  increasing complexity, equipped to interpret the
  thermodynamic world, and the cultural heritage.
  The addition of a second channel for semantic
  heritage provided an obvious advantage in
  development of skills to extend our exploitation
  of thermodynamic potential in the physical world.
• Poppers Three World model
• World 1 the physical world World 2 the
  human mind World 3 the extrasomatic cultural
  heritage, and its evolution.
• Popper introduced the evolutionary perspective
  a model of the mind that placed its evolution in
  a biological context, and considered the nature
  of the traffic between the three worlds in an
  epistemological framework.
• 2. Campbells evolutionary epistemology
• Dawkins memes insubstantial, infective mental
  agents. The parallel to viral infection (in
  Viruses of the Mind) seems far fetched.
• What about the wider philosophical context?

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Epistemological perspective
Gödels incompleteness theorems
Deterministic science
Logical positivists
Mathematics
Classical biology
Problems of inductive logic
Darwin and evolution psychology
Quantum theory Uncertainty Relativity
From the limitations of inductive reasoning, it
is apparent that there are many proposition for
which we cannot establish truth. Different
philosophical strategies for dealing with this.
Crisis of certainty
Wittgenstein II - language games, philosophy as
therapy
Scientific realism
(Pictures mostly from MacTutor, otherwise
individual websites)
Popper test hypotheses against reality
Bloor, - science as sociology, - truth is
relative
Kuhn -science as paradigms
Richard Rorty - pragmatism, antirealist
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From Boswells Life of Johnson After we came
out of the church, we stood talking for some time
together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry
to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that
every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I
observed, that though we are satisfied his
doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute
it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which
Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty
force against a large stone, till he rebounded
from it I refute it thus.
Popper Accept the idea that we can never
establish the truth of a hypothesis Replace the
goal of verifiability by that of falsification. A
hypothesis is useful only if it can be tested. We
can demonstrate that a hypothesis is not in
accord with the measurable properties of an
external reality. Evolution in the social
context of peer groups will determine the
survival of hypotheses that continue to withstand
the falsification test.
Occams razor (simplicity test) (Einsteins
interpretation - Things should be kept as simple
as possible, but not simpler) Importance of
paradox (Chestertons definition - Truth
standing on her head to get attention)
Of course, Johnson did not refute Berkeleys
ideas by this action. Nevertheless .
20
http//antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030305.html
Nemani et al. (2003) Science 300, 1560-1563
World population
http//antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040822.html
Constraints on NPP (above) World population (top
right) Civilization (excess energy, from light
usage at night) (bottom right)
Composite picture of the earth at night from
satellite data
What determines the competitive success of a
civilization?
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• Organized social structures are necessarily
  highly ordered, and hence inherently unstable.
• The appearance of stability comes from the
  development of political, social, economic,
  technical, and philosophical tools that make
  possible the continued maintenance, renewal and
  evolution of these institutions through the input
  of work.
• The continuous application of human endeavor
  needed to maintain the stability of a complex
  society is best served through the willing
  participation of its members. Willingness can
  be engendered through different mechanisms -
  fear, religious or totalitarian fervor, bribery
  and greed, informed consent, etc.
• The most successful exploitation of physical and
  intellectual resources has occurred in the
  context of democratic societies. The feedback
  loops between government and the people, and
  freedom to choose, open up possibilities for
  error correction that seem to have a longer term
  advantage.
• The freedom to express ideas has an obvious
  evolutionary advantage. If the sorting algorithms
  condoned by society limit ideas to those that
  conform to scripture, Quran, the party line,
  etc., stagnation can be guaranteed.
• Our extensions of the limits of experience and of
  our chronognostic range are all part and parcel
  of the same thing, - the evolution of the
  biosphere to take advantage of the thermodynamic
  opportunities available through refinement of the
  semantic heritage, and increased combinatorial
  complexity.

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Conclusions Philosophical discussion must be
framed in the context of an evolving culture, and
the mutability of ideas in individual minds. If
we want to get our ideas across to a wider
audience, we must bear in mind the limitations of
the translational machineries in different minds
(avoid abstruse technical terms if possible). We
need to ensure through all democratic means at
our disposal that our society continues to allow
free expression of ideas without the constraints
of dogma. We must take responsibility for our
future by addressing the effects arising from our
exploitation of the thermodynamic resources of
the world, and despoliation of the environment.